Thousands of miles deep beneath the ground, Peridot was encompassed by warmth. She had never known anything else but the half-waking state as her gem lay in the dirt. Some distant memory recalled the fact that someday, she would emerge, delicately, testing legs she had never had, as she slowly took in the world around her with darting eyes---but immediately be set upon by a kindergarten worker, barking millions of orders, responsibilities that were now hers. But even as she registered those memories, there was no worry or dread for the future in her mind. The half-sleep left no room for worry, for strong emotions, for fear. Those would come later.
The dirt all around her moved slowly, comfortingly. It shifted on top of her, sleepily shoving its face into her hair...hair? Peridot shifted on her own, perplexed, hands slowly gliding across a soft surface, but she wasn't supposed to have hands yet. She opened her eyes hesitantly, being met with only blackness, slightly tinted green, and the feeling of being pressed into something soft. There was something wrapped around her, the thing pressing her into whatever soft material she was shoved into, and something pushed into her hair, too, as she had felt before. Distantly, she could hear an odd sound, like heavy breathing right near her ears.
Her entire body and thoughts felt odd, as if they were weighed down, but the realization that she was trapped did wonders to snap her out of it. Suddenly jolted with fear, she frantically tried to push away from whatever trap was currently in the process of crushing her. Surprisingly to even Peridot, the mechanisms holding her in place gave way pretty easily, loosening up enough for Peridot to look up and see just what was going on.
Oh.
Amethyst's face, formerly in her hair, was now inches from her own. Peridot now recognized that the things wrapped around her were, in fact, arms, and not some mechanical crushing device. Amethyst's eyes were closed, and her chest moved slowly up and down..."sleeping." Yeah, that's what it was called. Amethyst was supposed to be teaching her how to. Sleep. Peridot frantically searched her memories for any part of Amethyst's explanation of the ritual that involved them being so...close together, but found no results. From her understanding, it was some sort of period of willing unconsciousness, with a chance of seeing a kind of "movie?" If this was an essential part, she was not informed. She was not informed whatsoever.
Her entire mind screamed in panic, telling her to leap out of the embrace and take off running, knowledge from years of living in Homeworld society screeching that this was completely and utterly repulsive, that doing things like this would end up with her getting either an extremely severe penalty or much, much worse--and yet. She couldn't move.
While she tried to muster up the will to escape, Peridot's face was still very close to Amethyst's own. The part of her that all the other parts did not like at all began to notice the extremely aesthetically pleasing shape of her lips, the thick eyelashes, even more elegant than usual when closed, the way her hair simply couldn't stay out of the way of one of her eyes, surely reducing visibility but looking captivating nonetheless.
She stared for who knows how long, engaged in an internal battle, but the completely illogical side was winning. Her entire face felt hot, and her breathing became more hurried, her mind beginning to scream for a whole different reason than the panic. An odd, foreign urge persisted every time her focus inevitably drifted back to Amethyst's lips. Perhaps, after so long, her logic decided in simply needed to go somewhere else where it would be appreciated. Surely...no one would notice if she...leaned over and...?
Peridot gently pressed her lips to Amethyst's own, face completely alight, eyes screwed tightly closed. Her panic gave way to a positive feeling, very positive, that she couldn't quite identify. But she wasn't bothered with that at the moment. If Peridot was watching a clock, or even knew how clocks worked, maybe she would notice that timed seemed to pass very quickly as she couldn't bring herself to pull away from what was supposed to be a short endeavor. When she finally managed, Peridot was simply left with the desire to hide. She simply shoved her face in Amethyst's chest yet again, hoping with all her heart that Amethyst wouldn't be angry when she woke up.
Her eyelashes were still shut tightly, but they flew open when she heard a hastily suppressed giggle.